In tracking goods delivered from a manufacturer's plant or from a warehouse to a receiving station such as a dock operated by a purchaser and onto which vendors make deliveries, there is a necessity for a reliable record of each transaction in order to discover or prevent theft or error. Approximately one third of the goods currently delivered are routed from a manufacture or storage facility directly to the purchaser's dock. In some cases, delivery is to the purchaser from an authorized distributor of such goods under contract with a source of the goods. An accurate set of records which truly reflect the operations is necessary.
Information processing generally begins at the receiving dock. The vendor normally supplies a paper record of each transaction at the time of delivery. The record may or may not accurately portray the actual transaction.
The vendor and/or a receiving clerk at this point in the transaction may engage in a plan to defraud the purchaser by diverting some of the listed goods to their own possession while falsifying the record to avoid detection of the theft. The vendor may report delivery to the dock of all of an item ordered by the purchaser when in fact less than all goods ordered are actually delivered to the dock.
A clerk generally is given the responsibility to check the vendor's invoice or record reflecting the transaction against the goods delivered. While normally the clerk monitors the traffic of the vendor, the purchaser may make his own assessment of the accuracy of the documents dealing with the delivery by the vendor and/or the clerk.
Circumstances may be such that the clerk and the vendor cooperate to defraud the purchaser.
The vendor and clerk may plot together in a scheme involving reporting delivery of more goods than actually delivered. The non-delivered items then are marketed or otherwise disposed of with the vendor and the clerk sharing in the proceeds.
Further instances have been discovered wherein the clerk, on his own, reports delivery of less than the number of items actually received thus providing basis to traffic in goods received but not reported.
Apparent is the need for a system for sensing and processing data that will signal discrepancies in the record of items reported as delivered where a vendor or a clerk acting alone or in concert commit a theft.
The present invention involves a system and operation thereof based on controllable input data to detect defalcations of either the vendor or the clerk acting alone or in concert in an attempt to defraud the purchaser.